


Auspice

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Developing Relationship, Holding Hands, Inline with canon, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27918727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "It’s an evolution, a unmistakable change that remains indefinable even as it happens before his very eyes, and Touga lies flat where he last fell, his arms spread wide over the skid marks of screeching tires and the rhythm of his breathing laid bare for the whisper of wind that flickers over the crenelations of the Arena." Touga loses a duel and is shown something eternal.
Relationships: Kiryuu Touga/Saionji Kyouichi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Auspice

Touga doesn’t know how long he lies on the floor of the Dueling Arena.

He ought to move. The combat is over, his opponent long since departed with the proof of her victory clinging close to her side; there is no benefit to Touga to remaining at the stage of his latest and last defeat. But there is no duel awaiting him, no promise of redemption hanging as heavy over his head as the castle that looms over their combat; it has evaporated along with his last chance at triumph, disintegrated with the towers and spires of that fairy tale palace to leave nothing but the vast, endless expanse of the open sky arching above him. So Touga lies still, his will to act sapped as entirely as the strength from his body, and he watches time craft the curves of clouds and the shift of light as blue rises, pales, deepens, shifting itself to gold and then to red so gently he can’t set a line on the change. It’s an evolution that remains indefinable even as it happens before his very eyes, and Touga lies flat where he last fell, his arms spread wide over the skid marks of screeching tires and the rhythm of his breathing laid bare for the whisper of wind that flickers over the crenelations of the Arena.

He doesn’t recognize the sunset for what it is until it is already fading, the crimson of the sky falling back to a darker cousin of the brilliant midday blue under which he faced Tenjou Utena for the last time. There is a moment when the sky appears to be on fire, awash in a red the color of the hair heavy around his shoulders, the color of poppies, the color of blood; then he blinks, and it is gone, swept away before the darkness of fast-falling night. Touga blinks again, staring up at the sky overturned above his spent form, watching the light of day abandon him to the blackness of the night, and as he gazes a name takes shape on his lips, forming itself to a sigh he recognizes only as it finds the shell of his ears. “Saionji.”

“What?”

Touga doesn’t jump in shock, but his stillness is more from an inability of his body to move than from a capacity for composure. He turns his head against the stone beneath him to crane his head up and around, and it’s only then that he sees the spill of dark curls tumbled out behind him, proof of the presence of a companion he had all but forgotten. Touga coughs a breath, the feel of a laugh stripped of all its will to be recognized outside of his own head. “I didn’t think you were still here.”

“Of course I am.” Saionji’s voice is raw as ever, rasping over the emotion he never lets free enough to form anything but irritation, but his strength seems to be as spent as Touga’s, and all he sounds is tired. “Where else would I go?”

Touga musters the strength for a weak laugh. “I thought you would leave me to the spoils of my defeat.”

“You weren’t the only one who lost,” Saionji tells him. “I was fighting with you.” There is a shift from over the top of Touga’s head. Touga sees Saionji’s arm drop across the sweep of his hair, his loose sleeve angled up to fall into the space between them. “I’m not going to let you keep all the credit of a glorious loss to yourself.”

“Oi oi,” Touga chides. “There’s not much glorious about lying flat on our backs all day.”

Saionji’s shoulder pulls up onto a shrug. “You’re welcome to leave any time you want.”

Touga smiles. “No,” he says. “I can hardly lift a finger either.” He raises his hand from his side to demonstrate; even with the hours of silent recovery, his wrist trembles, and he can hardly bring his forearm upright before the weight of his hand pulls it back to fall atop the dark tumble of Saionji’s loosened hair.

Silence wraps around them once again. The air is cooling, Touga notices idly, though the warmth of the day still lingers in the stone pressing to his back; the gusts of wind winding across the top of the Dueling Arena raise the fine hairs on his bare chest, prickling a chill of sensation more pleasant than otherwise to his sun-drenched skin. The air ripples over them, spooling itself to eddies along the stone of the Arena and catching at the inside cuff of Touga’s sleeve before tangling into the curls of Saionji’s loosened hair. A lock pulls free of the rest, whipping up and around the restraint of Touga’s outflung wrist to catch across his open fingers and pool in the cup of his palm. Touga catches it under his thumb, his fingers closing instinctively to grasp at the strands, and the wind falls silent again to leave him with the waving curl of Saionji’s hair spilling under his hold.

Saionji heaves a sigh. “I suppose that’s it then,” he says, sounding as much relieved as resigned. “We won’t be the ones bringing revolution to the world.”

“Mm,” Touga hums. His eyes are still on the dark of Saionji’s hair winding through his fingers; his wrist is shifting, his hand lifting to consider the weight of the lock as his thumb slides idly across the curl of the strands. “It seems not.”

“At least we’re done with these stupid fights,” Saionji says, with some attempt at his typical reckless temper. “Who cares whether we get out of our coffins anyway?”

Touga blinks. His fingers tremble, flexing with the surprise of recognition, and the silk-smooth of Saionji’s hair slips from his grip to tumble back to the stone beneath them. Touga stares at the wave, feeling something inexplicable twist in his chest: a memory, a wish, an emotion so long-repressed he doesn’t know the name for it, can no more hold to it than he can save the fall of a lock of hair tumbling back down to be swallowed by the waiting darkness.

Saionji doesn’t see the look on Touga’s face, doesn’t feel the shudder that runs through the other’s body, the tremor of a mortal blow, of a blade striking precisely home. Touga feels the shadows closing in on him, rising from his memory as they followed the retreat of the day to bind them in the illicit promise of night; and then there is a breath, caught up on the childish height of shock, and:

“Oh,” Saionji’s voice says. “Wow.”

Touga blinks and returns to the present: on the grounds of the Dueling Arena, sapped of his strength by the force of his loss, sprawled exhausted and boneless alongside the partner whose defeat followed his own. He cranes his neck up to look at Saionji, to answer the call of his surprise; but Saionji isn’t looking at Touga. His head is turned upwards, his face silvered bright enough to illuminate the shadows of his eyes to clarity. Touga stares at him, at that familiar face softened out of a decade’s age by the touch of impossible softness, and then he turns his head, and he follows the glow on Saionji’s face up to its source.

The sky isn’t dark at all. It is illuminated, awash in a sea of stars that pick themselves out from the darkness into a brilliance as impossible as infinity, as beautiful as eternity. Each one is no more than a pinpoint, a tiny flicker of light easily swallowed up by the night around them; but there is a multitude of them, too many to count, until their combined light swamps the sky. Touga’s breath catches, sticking itself to a gasp in his chest, and over his head Saionji huffs an exhale.

“Huh,” he says. There is still a roughness to his voice, a rasp that gives sincerity like surrender at the point of a sword, but the honesty is clear, as raw as an open wound trickling blood over the back of a bruised hand. “I didn’t know it looked like this at night.” He tips his head against the stone beneath them, a vague gesture towards Touga’s hand open and unresisting atop the spill of his hair. “Is this what you wanted to show Tenjou?”

Touga can’t answer.  _ Yes_, is half the truth warring within his chest; but he doesn’t remember the glow of the stars in his own eyes, didn’t see them at all for the distraction of his attention to the effort of playing prince, of forming himself to the role that might clasp the princess’s hand, might lead her towards a salvation that he has never found for himself. He had only the shape to offer with none of the substance, and whatever Tenjou Utena saw here last night she saw alone, on a path too much her own for Touga to follow her down.

Touga shakes his head. “I don’t know.” His voice sounds weak even to his own ears, nearly a whisper as it breaks free of his lips. When it quivers on the last word the sound dies entirely, falling to the pressure choking his throat with an emotion he thought he left in the tangled sheets and suffocating heat of his childhood bed.

There is silence in the Dueling Arena, heavy as the blanket of night crushing down in a still room, like glass hardening to diamond around them. Then there is a breath, harsh and rasping with deliberate volume, and Touga finds an inhale as Saionji turns his head back up to speak to the stars overhead.

“Whatever,” he says. “I guess it didn’t make a difference in the end. We lost anyway.” He sighs a breath loud enough to cover the catch in Touga’s throat as he inhales. “At least we still get to see this.”

Touga stays still for another moment. His eyes are hot, burning even against the gentle cool of the night around them, but he can see the individual waves of Saionji’s hair beside him, can track each curl in its wandering path over the Arena floor. His fingers shift, wrapping towards his palm on an impulse to hold with nothing remaining in his grasp. He watches his hand close, watches his fingernails catch at the flesh of his palm; and then he blinks, and turns his head, and looks up again.

The stars are still there, spangling the night sky overhead with the brilliance that so struck his breath from him at first glance. They fill the dark, brightening the black of Touga’s memory to a lush indigo canvas on which to splash their glittering patterns. Touga looks, and watches, and stares; and next to him, over his head, Saionji shudders a ragged exhale. “Pretty.”

Touga doesn’t lift his head to look back at Saionji. He doesn’t even turn to see his hand still outstretched, his fingers curled on the memory of a connection long-since absent. He looks up at the stars, filling his eyes with the sparkle of light where he thought there was nothing, of illumination where he only recalls darkness, and he lifts his other hand from his side, raising his arm above his head to find Saionji’s.

It isn’t a graceful contact. Touga is reaching for Saionji’s hand, looking to brush his fingers across the other’s, but he overshoots his goal, his hand landing first at loosened sleeve and then fumbling down to angular wrist before his fingers tighten to clasp just under the cuff of the other’s undone jacket. Touga doesn’t mean to seize bruising force against Saionji’s skin, but the heat of the other’s bare wrist clutches something desperate and pained in his chest, and he can do nothing but tighten his hold as his breath catches and his vision blurs away the bright of the stars into a fog.

He can feel Saionji tense, can feel the sudden strain of the other’s body as clearly as he hears the sharp drag of breath Saionji takes. The tendons of his wrist rise under Touga’s grip, pressing resistance against his hold as Saionji’s fingers curl towards a fist. Touga blinks, forcing his vision to clarity, dragging himself back to the present, and as Saionji jerks against his hold Touga’s overtight grip loosens, his fingers easing as he drags them back from the warmth of Saionji’s skin. He’s retreating, sliding his hand away as quickly as he can force himself to act; and then a hold closes around his palm to stall his motion as Saionji huffs frustration.

“You hurt me,” he snaps. Touga would apologize, though he has no guess whether his voice will fall to sincerity or amusement, but Saionji’s hand is pushing against his, and he cannot even think to reply by rote as Saionji’s thumb forces his palm open. “Let  _ go_.” Touga is already obeying, his hand relaxing as his thoughts stumble, and as his fingers uncurl Saionji’s force between them, clumsy and awkward and hot as summer everywhere they touch. Saionji interlaces his fingers with Touga’s, clasping the other’s hand tightly in his own, before he lets himself sag back to the Arena floor with a sigh.

“There,” he says. “It wasn’t that complicated.”

Touga doesn’t answer. He can’t reply. His hand is radiant, burning with self-consciousness everywhere Saionji’s skin touches his own; but he can feel Saionji’s fingers trembling atop his in spite of the deliberate casualness of his words. Touga blinks, watching his vision blur with the haze of the emotion closing his throat, and then he tightens his grip on Saionji’s hand.

He’s squeezing at least as hard as he held to the other’s wrist, and against more delicate fingers; but Saionji doesn’t say a word, just presses his own hold tighter. The heat catches between their palms, reflecting on itself until it coats their skin with a shimmer of sweat, but Touga doesn’t pull away, and Saionji doesn’t let him go.


End file.
